US-30

The Lincoln Highway is 100 years old this year, and Wyoming PBS will be screening a new documentary about it this weekend. Much of what was the Lincoln Highway in Wyoming is now Interstate 80, but parts of the original route are still separate. The film tells the story of the highway in Wyoming. Producer Tom Manning joins us now. He says the Lincoln Highway holds an important place in Wyoming’s history and in the history of the U.S. as a whole.

At first glance, it looks like another shuttered roadside business. The exterior is overgrown and the door is hard to find. By the look of things, you may wonder if this is the kind of place you’ll need a secret handshake to enter. What is this place exactly? It’s Pete’s Roc n Rye Club in Evanston. For our final stop on the Lincoln Highway, producer Erin Dorbin made it past the entrance and sent us this postcard.

This summer, the Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office received a grant to survey buildings and landscapes along the I-80 corridor. Because I-80 and old US-30 roughly follow the nation’s first transcontinental highway, the project was called the ‘Lincoln Highway Survey.’ In honor of the highway’s 100th anniversary, we’ll make some stops along the road this week. Wyoming Public Radio’s Micah Schweizer begins our series by speaking with Beth King and Erin Dorbin from the State Historic Preservation Office.